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Monday, July 25, 2016

Gemma completed the summer reading program at the library. She got a certificate of completion, a book of her choice, and a kid's meal at Benihana's. We went to dinner with Gemma's good friend B and B's mom. B ate everything - soup, vegetables, protein - while Gemma ate white rice and rainbow sherbet.

I clearly need to habit train my picky eater.

The book Gemma chose as her prize-book was Jewel Society: Keep Friends Close, Emeralds Closer by Hope McLean, another mystery. (She didn't even look at the picture books; she went straight for the chapter books, and not the thin ones.) She decided on the "emerald" one in the series, because green is her favorite color. The book is a level S, end of 4th grade. She's 3/4 done with her Chickadee Court mystery, so she'll start this one in about a week.

We met with our home(pre)school co-op. The theme this month is maps. The host mom read the group the book FollowThat Map (Ritchie). She hid three treasures in our neighborhood park, and drew a map showing where the treasures were hidden. Here is the group studying the map...

One treasure was a bag of compass rings!

Another thing Gemma and I did this week was make a cherry pie.

At the end of May, my in-laws brought us a crate of fresh cherries a friend of theirs had let them pick.

I hand-pitted enough cherries for a pie - four cups - and froze them. This week, we made the pie.

The finished product was not inedible, but because we used sweet cherries, our pie didn't taste like what I was expecting. (I later read that cherry pies are usually made with sour cherries.)

Daddy taught Gemma how to use a saw.

And then they had a tea party.

There was dance, piano, swimming, and a trip to the library. There was Prince Caspian, Life of Fred: Farming, TrainingHearts... There was also a walk on the beach and a ride on the carousel.

I tried to get her to ride the pig (it's new, a replacement for the rabbit), but she wanted a horse.

Many Charlotte Mason homeschoolers claim that combining CM with CC is not possible; the philosophies/goals are different. However, some claim it is possible to use CM with CC - in the younger years - but as children get older, CC takes over. I have yet to find someone who has continued to use CM with CC in the upper grades, but if there is someone who does this, I'd love to hear from them.

I think that one of the biggest difficulties in combining CC with CM in the later years is that CC is considered to be a comprehensive high school program, which means there isn't room in the schedule for more. For example, in English, students read a book and write an essay every three weeks, so there may not be a lot of time for students to read additional literature - a problem for those wishing to follow CM.

But, I'm not going to worry about it right now. Right now I'm going to think about "kindergarten," for which we're doing nothing formal.

I was probably the person who spent the least money in the Practicum bookstore. I bought just 3 items: 1)this cycle's audio CDs, 2)this cycle's dry-erase map, and 3)this cycle's flash cards. If I had a non-reader, I would not have purchased the flash cards, but because Gemma can read, liked using the cards last year, and asked for them, I got them. If I had a non-reader, I would have purchased only TWO items.

If you're just starting CC with a 4 year old, and want to CM CC, you only need 4 items: 1)a Foundations guide, 2)a tin whistle, 3)the current cycle's map, and 4)the current cycle's audio CDs (I consider the CDs the most valuable of the 4 items). Other resources are nice - for example, last year I bought the timeline cards, the Song School Latin book, the cursive letters coloring book, and the Trivium at the Table placemats - but they aren't necessary, and they definitely aren't needed for someone who is CMing CC.

This year, I restrained myself. I considered the Story of the World CDs. I picked them up, turned them over in my hand, looked up the price on Amazon, flipped through the book, but I reminded myself that I am not starting formal history lessons until next year.

Also, I don't love Story of the World, the preferred history text of CCers. I like it. I think it's very good. But I don't love it. I also don't love Hillyer's, the preferred history spine of AOers. Right now, for a history spine, I'm leaning towards the M.B. Synge books.

I prefer Synge's writing to the writing of Hillyer and Wise. In her chapter on Martin Luther, she uses the words alms, scanty, henceforth, and remonstrate, and doesn't define the words for her reader. She expects her reader to a)understand them, or b)understand them from the context, or c)wonder what they mean enough to find out.

Someone on the Simply Charlotte Mason forum decided not to use Synge because Synge was too "convincing" and her child would "cry over the detailed descriptions of the deaths" because "he felt like he truly knew the figure we were learning about from the narrative." I think that's actually a reason to use them.

I'm not saying we should make our children cry, but I'll get to that later.

Because I'm CMing CC, I'm never going to purchase the Story of the World activity book. A CM education does not include hands-on history activities, and this exclusion is supported by current research. Current research shows that a child remembers what the child spent the most time thinking about. So, if a child making a shepherd's crook of the pharaoh's, the child is thinking about how to construct a crook, not about pharaohs.

I'm not saying these activities are bad. I've done many hands-on history activities because they were fun. And I now understand that this is the only reason to do them. So if my daughter wants to make a shepherd's crook from paper and tape, I will get her paper and tape. If she wants to mummify a chicken, I will get her a chicken. I'm not going to plan my child's education around things that can be done as playtime activities.

Okay, so back to making children cry...

My friend Lorraine, whom I've been friends with since high school, played Belle in a production of Beauty and the Beast.

Lorraine is an amazing singer and performer. She's played Belle four times, so she knows the character inside and out. I saw her in the first production she did 11 years ago and I thought she was excellent. This week, I got to take Gemma to see Lorraine perform, and Lorraine was better than excellent. She understands Belle so deeply that Belle isn't a cartoon character. She's real.

So when Belle told the Beast, "You didn't even let me say goodbye," my daughter burst into tears and said, "But she's never going to see her father again!"

Now, it's not like Gemma's never seen the movie. She knew the Beast would become human, and that Belle and the Beast would marry and live happily ever after, but Lorraine had made Gemma believe she was Belle on an emotional level. That's what skilled actors can do, and that's what makes good theatre.

Here's where I confess to something: I didn't tell Gemma, "Don't worry." I wanted her to worry. I wanted her to think that someone being separated from her father forever is devastating.

Whether we're watching a play or movie, or reading a book, when we tell children, "Don't worry, everything is fine," we help them detach from the story. We should want them to connect, to worry, to believe the Beast is causing Belle to suffer, and to feel that is wrong.

(If a child wants to stay in a theater, or keep reading a book, stay, keep reading. But if a child asks to leave or asks you to stop reading, do; they're not ready.)

After the show, Gemma had fun playing tag with the actor who played Gaston.

We got to spend time with family...

...which included spending all of Friday morning drinking coffee and solving the Think Fun Houdini puzzle with my dad.

I got the puzzle for Dad at Christmas. It's actually 40 puzzles in one, and we solved puzzles one through twelve. So. Much. Fun. I look forward to us solving the rest.

Saturday, our friends Anita and Julia took us out for a special treat . (A couple of months ago, when Gemma turned 5, Anita told Gemma she could choose a birthday adventure, so Gemma chose King Arthur.) The adventure began with breakfast...

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

-Gemma rode her bike to the beach, and on the way home, we stopped at a place that has frozen yogurt and omusubi. It was my first time trying an omusubi, which is a rice ball filled with meat or seafood, and wrapped with seaweed. I had one filled with ginger pork curry, and one filled with tuna, spicy mayo, jalapeños, and cucumbers. They were so so good. Gemma had frozen yogurt.

Sunday, July 10, 2016

On Tuesday, she participated in a UCLA research study... because these are the kinds of things we do for fun.

As a prize, she got to select the book of her choice. The research assistants opened the cabinet of books, and Gemma pulled a chapter book off the shelf. I was surprised; I thought she was going to choose a picture book. But this is the one she wanted...

She read the first chapter to me on the ride home, and has read a chapter every day since. It's about a boy named Alex Parakeet who lives on a street where all of the residents decorate their houses for Christmas, and the decorations start to go missing. It's one in a series, so I'm curious to see if Gemma will want to read other Chickadee Court Mysteries after this.

In math, we started Life of Fred: Farming.

Mid-week, we had a park day with our Classical Conversations co-op.

We made a Figures in Motion Christopher Columbus, and read some of the D'aulaires Columbus book.